Sorry for the wait, and for the dark side to this chapter, but hope you enjoy x

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At 17 Catherine left home. Left Vegas. By 21 she was back, taking her clothes off for a living. At 24, she met Eddie.

The first time Eddie had knocked her about she blamed it on the alcohol. The loss of a potential music client had hit him hard and he had turned to drink to soothe his wounds. When she tried to comfort him, he lashed out. Understandably, or so she had told herself.

There was always a reason, an explanation. An excuse.

Except that night. Because that night she was pregnant.

They had gotten into a fight about money, or the lack of it, and she finally pushed him to his limit. He slapped her so hard she fell to the floor, her arms circling her stomach protectively as she fell. But it wasn't enough.

She lost the baby.

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She had lied. Lied to the doctor, lied to the nurses. She told them she had fallen down the stairs. Crappy lie, she knew, but it was the best she had under the circumstances.

Lying in the hospital bed, her arms wrapped tightly around herself as if it wasn't too late to save her child, she thought about why she had protected him. Fear, perhaps? She knew that he hadn't meant to hurt her or the baby, but she also knew that he possessed a lot more strength then even he believed. She wasn't scared of Eddie, most of the time. Just sometimes.

Lying there, numb, she didn't cry for the baby she had lost; not yet. Later, when she was alone in the privacy of her own home then she could cry. But now, she lay awake, staring at the stark white ceiling, wondering where her life had fallen off the tracks.

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Eddie never came back to the hospital. Not even when she was discharged. She half expected him to be waiting for her at her flat, but he was nowhere in sight. No phone calls. No flowers. Not even a card.

She practically collapsed onto the dilapidated couch, letting her bag remain where it had fallen by the door. She looked around, wondering once again how her life had turned to this. What little furniture she had was falling to pieces. The walls were cracked and faded. She realised that he had never actually looked at her two-room flat properly before. She was barely ever in it long enough to take notice of the little things like the dated furnishings and the stains on the carpet.

Looking around now, she wondered why. Why was she living in this crap-shack, detached from her family, taking her clothes off just to make a buck? And where did that money go? Drugs, mainly.

Her own boyfriend put her in hospital and didn't even care enough to visit her. She wondered whether anyone would even notice of she just lay down and died right now. She tried to push the thought away but it kept finding its way back, and the thought became more and more appealing. Maybe she should do just that.

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Ignoring the throbbing in her stomach, she hauled herself off the couch to the kitchen. She had two bottles of vodka in the bottom cupboard and she intended to make good use of them. Them and the stash of cocaine in the cutlery drawer.

She tried to stand back up, but her legs decided to stop working so she sat on the kitchen floor and started to make her pain go away.

The more she consumed the less of her body she could feel and the more this seemed to be a good idea. What did she have to live for anyway? Her family didn't want to know her, her boyfriend didn't care about her, she had effectively lost two children and nobody cared enough to so much as phone and make sure she was okay.

Well, everything would be okay soon.

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Bright lights. Too many bright lights. She cracked one eye open carefully and tried to look around and suss out her surroundings but it hurt to even move. Well at least she knew one thing for sure; she wasn't dead. Death wasn't supposed to be this painful.

That smell. As soon as it hit her she knew exactly where she was. Someone was poking her but she ignored it. Finally they stopped.

She heard the door creak open, but didn't open her eyes. It was probably a nurse, or Eddie, or...

"Catherine?" Her eyes flew open, seeking out the voice.

"Mom?" She mumbled, her voice beginning to crack. Her mother didn't rush over to hug her. She remained rooted to the spot, barely inside the room.

"Oh Catherine." Lily sighed, shaking her head sadly. "What happened to you my girl?"

And finally, Catherine broke.

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Lily stayed all night, one hand firmly clutching her wayward daughter's. When Cath blinked her eyes open, her vision blurred from sleep, Lily was curled by her side on the bed, one hand gently placed on her stomach.

She rolled onto her side, nestling her head into the crook of Lily's neck. Her mother stirred, instinctively pressing Catherine tighter to herself before releasing her and sitting up.

"How do you feel?" She asked softly.

"Like someone's kicked me in the stomach." Catherine answered honestly, her voice hoarse from sleep. She curled into a ball, letting Lily stroke her hair gently. "What happened?" she mumbled at last.

"You tried to overdose, that's what happened." Lily sighed. "They pumped your stomach. Found half a bottle of sleeping pills in there." This was news to Catherine. Sleeping pills? She vaguely recalled crawling into the bathroom... "What happened to you, Cathy?" Lily asked sadly, sniffing back tears. Cath didn't answer. She remained as she was, curled up in a ball with her eyes tight closed.

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When Eddie finally came out of hiding and showed his face a day later, Catherine took him back. She couldn't tell you why she did it, or why she didn't tell her mother about the miscarriage.

Sam had once told her that everything happened for a reason. She didn't know what the reason was for these things, or for what reason she had lost her baby.

But she knew why she did what she did, and it taught her two things:

She had to find a new job, and a new home.

And she had to find her little girl.